numb
by bombsareforbabies
Summary: Sasuke looks at the charred bodies of over a hundred children, and thinks that his brother must be a saint compared to him. (Not everybody can spit flames or jump across roofs. Sasuke realizes this too late.)
1. Children

**TRIGGER WARNINGS: Suicidal thoughts, child death, purging, vivid-ish descriptions of death**

* * *

There is a burning child, and the body is so marred that he cannot tell if it is a boy or girl. There are many children lying dead at his feet, but this one is special. It had seen him, and must have thought that he was somebody else. He will never forget charred black lips wheezing out their last words.

 _"Nii-san, save me."_

 _._

The fact that there were no shinobi had not occurred to Sasuke when he set all the entrances and exits of the building on fire. All he wanted to do was flush a man who supposedly had information on his brother out through a window; there weren't many, and it was easier to watcH only one side of the building. It was ridiculously easy to escape from, and it was slow moving.

Those that jumped through the window did not jump to relative safety. They fell like stones and crashed into red porcelain. Screams were heard from the inside, and it did not occur to him that they were trapped until it was too late; until the flames had risen too high for any of his measly water jutsu to restrain.

He could only watch as everything collapsed. Even others who had come rushing over to help had to retreat because of the heat. Sasuke stared until it was almost all gone, and he was about to leave when he heard it.

"N-n…" A small hand twitches, and he could not help but get closer to the child that was, despite all odds, alive. It clutched at his finger, and he made no move to make it let go. "Nii-san… s-save me." Then dark eyes went glassy and the sounds of people approaching forced Sasuke to move from the corpse.

.

He is a good distance from the small town when he finally stops. He bends over and vomits until nothing but bile stings his throat.

.

A few days later and he has slept maybe an hour. Probably less.

He sees a newspaper, words like _ARSON_ and _MASSACRE_ and _SCHOOL_ and _NO SURVIVORS_.

He vomits until he can't, and then he sticks a finger down his throat. No matter how much comes up, he can't purge away the blood of a whole fucking school of children.

.

Sasuke knows that their deaths were painful, and that they had no training. They were scared, and it was not swift and painless. Nothing was hidden in darkness. The children had to see their own skin burn away in broad daylight.

.

Sasuke is sitting on the floor of a motel bathroom, his head bumping a toilet seat that had not been washed for years. He tries to keep his eyes open, but can't. The bodies of children and burning words haunt him. If not them, then the red of his brother's fingers and the slumped bodies of his family.

He is surrounded by corpses.

.

It occurs to him that his crimes may actually eclipse his brother's at this point.

Children. Apparently there had been a large number born a few years ago, and they had to expand the school. Other towns also shared the building, and it had become a place where the local villages converged. There must have been at least a hundred students in there.

He had killed them all.

.

The realization that he has no control shakes him. All the plans he ever made were really written by others, and he has been manipulated all of his life. The few times he has complete and utter power regarding his actions, he takes something and breaks it.

Sasuke wonders if Itachi has ever wanted to die as much as he does now.


	2. Purged

Sasuke knows anger and vengeance, but has never really had it turned on himself before. The same spark of fury and the urge to rip something apart is there. It still feels like a pressure that is ready to burst at any moment.

Sasuke has enough hatred to fill oceans and he is drowning.

A week has passed, and he knows that it is dangerous to stay any longer. He will leave, but he has to go and do something before that. Maybe he can find absolution if he visits the children. ( _Maybe he can find somebody to blame, someone besides himself_.)

The graves are new, and the dirt smells fresh enough to make him gag. He stays a distance away, but close enough to realize that this new and heavy feeling in his chest just won't go away. His hand grips a tree hard enough to crack the bark, and it reminds him of yet another ability that he has taken for granted ever since he was born.

Damnit. Sasuke hates thinking about anything but battle plans and ways for him to get closer to his goals. Now thoughts swirl in his head, and he feels too light and too heavy at the same time. It makes him nauseous and angry, because there is little else he can deal with. ( _Guilt, sorrow, empathy, sadness. They will destroy him_.)

He snaps out of his trance at the sound of metal meeting flesh and bone, the taste of iron and copper that somehow ends up on his tongue, the putrid smell of waste.

The crying of a man who is more than broken.

Lying so close to a grave that his head touches the stone, a man gasps. Blood comes out of his mouth and, despite knowing that he is not going to survive, Sasuke moves closer. A sword, likely an old thing passed down through the generations, is sloppily driven through the man's stomach.

Somehow the man has enough life left inside of him to chuckle. His vision must be blurred, and once again Sasuke is mistaken for another.

"I'm sorry, son."

.

Brother, son. Son, brother.

Sasuke is not stupid. He knows he witnessed both a child's, and its father's, deaths. He wonders what will happen to the boy who he must look like.

.

Even though he has no plans of reading it anytime soon, Sasuke buys a paper. He just had a feeling that he will be angry at himself it if he does not. ( _Regret. He would regret it._ )

In the future he may be able to read the obituary of a man he might as well have stabbed himself.

.

Sasuke has spent so long tending to his hate that he let all his other emotions wither and die. Now, as they grow inside of him again, he has no idea how to cope with them.

He tries to think of his brother, to rekindle his outward hatred enough to burn out anything else, especially the small piece of hatred that cannot be put upon anybody else's shoulders. Every time he tries, the bodies of his relatives smoke and merge and become smaller and Itachi's cold face is replaced with his own.

The scent of flesh and a sword wielded by someone with more grief than experience mix with gashes across bodies and the red of another set of eyes. It makes him sick, and he spends another day by the toilet.

.

He knows it is not healthy. He knows this is going to fuck him up in the future, but he does not care right now. Every bite he eats is too much to fit beside the stone that has made its home in his belly. Long lasting foods like smoked meats only taste like ash and death in his mouth.

Every meal leaves him feeling sick and bloated with death. It gets so bad that, if he is too distressed, he tries to purge the decay from himself. This is the only thing he can control now. ( _His freezing hold on his emotions was only a thin sheet of ice, even if he convinced himself it was a glacier._ )

.

Uchiha are composed and elegant and deadly. Sasuke remembers a time when he did not care about being any of them. Those were simpler times, and he finds himself jealous of his naïvety.

For all the skill and strength he has, he feels powerless.


	3. Denial

Sasuke has burned down a school building and indirectly caused a man to perform seppuku in front of his child's grave. He is debating on whether he should attempt to be a vegetarian or hope that meat will eventually stop tasting like burning children, and he feels so disgusted with himself that he will not keep his food down.

To say he is not doing well is an understatement. He has not taken a shower, or even a rinse in the river, for days now. It is not necessarily uncommon for shinobi to have to go without hygiene, but when a chance is provided one should always take it. The shower in the side bathroom has gone unused.

Eventually though, he forces himself to drag his body in the small chamber and hopes there are not any deadly fungi lurking around.

.

It is only after he has wrecked his body a little further that he can eat without the feeling in his stomach and chest making him vomit anyway. Better do it before eating than waste the food.

His throat burns and it feels good to him. ( _Not good, numb. But that's all he can ask for right now_.)

.

"What's the difference between revenge and avenging?"

"Well, I s'pose it's who you're doin' for. Yourself or the people who've been wronged?"

Sasuke used to think that he knew the answer. He can remember the face of the child that looked to him for comfort before it died better than he can remember many of his relatives. It does not make the pain of that night any less, but it is the first time he has thought of the ones who were murdered rather than his quest.

The man who sits on the bench next to him gives him a look that is far too sharp for a normal drunkard. "Kid, if y'ave to take this long t' figure this out, it means y'don't like the conclusion y'came up with."

.

Sasuke was angry all the time, and he never stopped long enough to be anything else. He is still angry, but it is tinted with the kind of blue that reaches the lips of a dying man. It makes his throat close and his nerves sing, and there is nothing he can do about it. His emotions spiral and crash and he can't keep up with them, not without his finger down his throat.

He knows that he is not actually getting rid of his sins, but his mind becomes quiet afterwards. If it can control the feelings, then he has to do it. ( _They told him about kills in the academy. This is so, so different that he wants to scream_.)

Even trying to focus on his hate has become too much of a chore.

.

It was only a matter of time before somebody came for him. His name and bloodline are worth a lot in many countries, and he is only surprised that nobody came earlier.

A knock at his door makes him wonder. If he opens it to an enemy, will he even bother to fight them off?

He opens the door.

"Hello, Sasuke."


	4. Guilt

"What are you doing here?"

The languid pose hides a man who is able to put lightning through a person before they can blink. Usually the sight of his old sensei would put him on edge, but Sasuke has been both too attentive and totally apathetic for the past few days, and it is not likely going to stop anytime soon.

A single eye, sharp and dangerous, drags over his body. Then, as if assessing that Sasuke is no harm to the him, Kakashi takes out his old and well-kept copy of Icha Icha Paradise. Sasuke recognizes this as something that he would consider a slight, before. Now, he just stares at the book for a second before stepping aside to grant the other man entrance.

Another look over, probably to see if there is any sign of an ambush in his eyes, and Kakashi walks into the room. Sasuke does not bother to lock the door as he shuts it.

"It's not very shinobi-like to invite a possible enemy into your…" Kakashi takes a look around and a sniff; the stench of bile and stomach acid meets his nose and that is what no doubt causes the slight recoil. "…Room."

"Hn." Sasuke does not tell him that if he were to try and put a chidori through his chest right now, he would not care. Judging from the look Kakashi is giving him, he does not have to.

"You look like shit." Sasuke just grunts again. He looks like shit, feels like shit, and yet knows that he is not shit. The feeling in his stomach tells him otherwise; he is worse. ( _Too much, too much. He can feel them crawling out of his throat_.) Sasuke does not say a word as he closes the bathroom door behind him.

Even with the sink at its highest pressure, he is sure that Kakashi can hear the gags.

.

Kakashi stares a second, wondering why the boy is even bothering to waste water to try and cover his retching. The scent of sickness had permeated the air before he even got to the door. In all honesty, he had only knocked out of courtesy. With the way that depression and death swam around the room and the hallway outside, he had expected to open the door to a corpse.

Not that his former student is doing much better.

.

Sasuke does not feel better, but he feels less, which is leagues ahead of where he was. He needs to keep his thoughts under control, otherwise they will bend their way back to That. The raised eyebrow from his teacher is an unvoiced acknowledgement of the practice that is quickly becoming a habit got him. ( _It's going to be an addiction if he does not find something else to take the edge off. He may have gone past that point already_.)

"Why are you here?" Sasuke speaks in a low monotone. It is more to cover the scratch ones of his voice after he has abused his throat, but it sounds like he is trying to be intimidating. He knows it is not to kill him, because he has little doubt that Kakashi is much less reserved about him than the other members of Team Seven. "If it was because I'm worse than trash, I'd be dead right now."

"There was a fire that I've been sent to investigate. The Hokage thinks it may be a terrorist group, but," he looks Sasuke right in the eye, a dangerous thing for even a seasoned jounin to do, "it looks like it was you."

There is a meeting of dead eyes, and Kakashi continues. "Killing a child is how Asuma started smoking, how I started reading, and why Kurenai… Well, that's not my story to tell. It is why you are ruining yourself. _Guilt_."

The word hits Sasuke like an arrow, dipped in poison and sent through his chest.


	5. Travel

"What are you going to do now, Sasuke?" Kakashi knows that Sasuke cannot keep doing whatever this mess is. Sasuke knows that Kakashi knows. In all honesty, he had not thought about it before the older man had brought it up. Along the way, his plans have gone from training to kill his brother to just living day by day. It is so much harder to do the latter.

Instead of vocalizing this, he just shrugs. If what Kakashi has said before was true, the man must know how this feels. ( _But Sasuke killed innocent children who had no reason to die. He had burned them en masse._ ) There is nothing to say, really; right now he feels like he could live and die in this room and it would not make a difference.

He looks at his hands, even if his sense of self-preservation should be telling him to keep his watch on the dangerous man that is reading porn in his motel room. They are pale and soft looking, nothing like the thick callouses from constant weapon use that he has seen on other shinobi. Beauty and danger seem to be one and the same in his profession.

The sound of creaking wood breaks him out of his trance, and the small mattress shifts beneath him. A hand rubs his spikes, almost affectionately. He knows better though, it is a silent message: ' _I can touch you, and a touch is all I need to kill you_.' A spike of chakra is all it will take, but Sasuke finds himself leaning slightly into the touch. (' _I don't care what you do; I deserve this_.')

There is no forward, there is no back. Sasuke is numb as he follows his old teacher out the door, leaving anything that was not in his pack behind.

"Naruto has been working for years to get you back, and you're following me like a lost ninken." The eye-smile is back, but it is forced. Sasuke tries to remember when he had last seen Naruto, and can only remember the face of a cold little boy as he bled out in the rain. They were children when he had almost killed him, and somehow that bothers him more now than it did when the memory was fresh.

He swallows the bit of bile that instinctively comes up into his mouth and winces as the burning retreats down his throat. Still, he manages to make his usual monosyllabic grunting noise. "Hn."

If he continues to follow Kakashi, he will most likely never see the outside of a prison cell again. Or, at least not without a guard ready to kill him should he start trouble. No more hunting Itachi, no more wandering the elemental countries. ( _No more revenge, no more anger, no more looking at people's eyes as they become lifeless husks_.) He does not know if this is something he considers better or worse. Then again, he has not trusted himself for over a week now. ( _He cannot bring himself to resist, to muster up the strength and defiance to do so._ )

He is too numb to even care what his fate is. Somehow, that is almost just as painful as the guilt that burns his insides out,

A warm feeling spreads from the crown of his head to the rest of his body, and he wonders what seal Kakashi had placed there. Probably a chakra suppressant, if their civilian pace is anything to go by.

They walk until it is dark, and then they start to make a camp. Sasuke has a dog watching his every movement; even when he goes to piss and vomit up his regrets.

"Kid, that'll mess you up." A small brown pug says, scratching his ear with his hind legs. All the dog gets is a grunt in response.

The next day is uneventful, once again full of slow walking. They eventually make it to another camp that is already set up. He looks at Kakashi, with an eyebrow raised in question. The other man just shrugs. "You never asked where we were going."


	6. Unforgiven

Sasuke follows Kakashi as they head towards the camp, and he notices a few sleeping bags. A fire had just been put out, but is in no way hidden. They must be coming back soon, Sasuke thinks. Then the scent truly hits, and he knows that the only reason he isn't vomiting is because he keeps swallowing it back down until he can head to a bush.

He excuses himself, not giving a shit about the small dog traipsing after him. The foliage is thick and smells of pollen and dirt. A minute later it smells like bile and acid, but not much else. Last night he did not have anything of substance to eat, so his stomach is already empty. He is wiping the splatters from the corner of his mouth when he hears it.

There is a rustling from a bit to his left, and he looks lazily at where the noise is coming from. He stays in his crouched position, but does not make a move to grab his kunai, which aren't even on him anyways. The rustling gets closer, and he hears a gasp. It is not Kakashi's voice, nor is it the dog's; he recognizes it from somewhere, but what he remembers is a higher pitch and a cheery lilt.

Kakashi had never mentioned who he was traveling with, but it makes sense that he would be with what was left of Team Seven.

"S-Sasuke?"

.

Naruto is not sure how to feel when he sees his (former?) best friend kneeling next to a puddle of vomit. He should feel happy, and somewhere inside of him he is, but that feeling is eclipsed with worry. Sasuke looks horrible.

There used to be an old man that lived in an alley near the apartment that Naruto lives in, and he had a look on his face that Naruto has never seen since, not until today. The man in the alley killed himself a week after he met him. He does not want Sasuke to end up with skin slit from wrist to elbow, blood and booze leaking together underneath him because the broken bottle that was used to do the deed had not been finished.

Naruto knows that look, and it scares him. But instead of saying these things, he tries to smile. He found Sasuke, and they can save him from himself once they get back to Konoha.

.

Sakura is talking to Kakashi, asking about what the reports from the fire are, when Naruto starts loudly talking to some unknown person. As soon as he gets into the light provided by the rekindled fire, she sees who is slowly walking beside Naruto. She has been waiting a long time to see him again, to tell him that her heart had been ripped out by him and she had been left to try and fit the pieces back together, but the empty look on his face take the words from her mouth.

It all clicks, and there is no way that she will give him the satisfaction of showing her broken heart. "You killed over a hundred children, Sasuke. I hope it was worth your eyes." She walks into her tent, and does not plan to come out. The tears that fall on her face remain unseen. She stays out of sight, even when she hears Naruto call after her and the sounds of retching.

.

Sasuke did not expect Sakura to be the one that condemned him. She had followed him and tried to prove her love to him, now all that he can see in her eyes is disgust warring with affection. It's the look he used to have when he thought of Itachi. He knows he deserves it, but it still hurts. Naruto puts a hand on his shoulder and tells him that she will calm down eventually.

.

His finger twitches, and he needs to get rid of whatever is left inside of him. The weight in his stomach is back, and he needs to get rid of it.

.

They make it to Konoha within the week. The gates are large, and Sasuke had forgotten how large the village actually is. The guards startle when they see him, and they rush off at a hand signal that Kakashi gives them. Not a minute later, a woman with a diamond on her forehead and steel in her eyes storms down the road like the wrath of god.


	7. Under

Sasuke feels the fingers against his neck, and the pressure makes his throat burn even hotter. He has the urge to lean into it, to make the air cut off from his lungs. Somehow he resists it. The golden brown eyes that stare into his are full of rage, both cold and hot. ( _Hot as fire, and he feels like he knows much too much about fire. It burns and it burns and he burns everything that he touches._ )

Eventually, after some frantic yelling by Naruto, Tsunade lets his neck go. The fingers loosen, but it feels like a noose has been tightened even closer to his skin. Sasuke is hauled around, and impossibly strong arms hold him. He is roughly taken away, and there is a part of him that knows he should care.

.

Seals are slapped onto him and he can feel them seeping away his chakra, making it nigh impossible for him to perform jutsu.

He is blindfolded and they bring him into a room where they keep the cloth on. Sasuke knows it is due to his eyes, and he struggles, because every time his vision is not clear he can see them. ( _Blades and fire and burnt skin and metallic blood._ ) The idea of trying to think about anything else is not feasible. His memories are all tainted. ( _All he knows is anger and hate and sadness and gore and burning._ )

In the darkness he hears voices talking. When he gets a slap on the cheek and a demand for answers, he realizes that he is being asked questions. Before his interrogator can ask any more questions, he feels a manicured hand take his chin and roughly pull it forwards.

"You wasted your whole life on your fucking brother. Killing him won't bring anybody back. Not the Uchiha, not those children."

.

Tsunade is restraining herself. This kid has tried to kill the boy who still calls him his best friend. Naruto is too optimistic, and Sasuke does not deserve that; she will not kill him, though. The boy has grown into a man in order to bring this traitor back, and breaking his heart will fix nothing.

Besides, Sasuke shouldn't get the mercy of a swift death. She is going to make him live with the guilt.

Looking him in the face, one that is almost always poised and arrogant, she growls out what his eulogy could have - _should have_ \- been. All she gets is a strangled noise and whispered words in response.

"I'm… I'm sorry."

Of all the things that he could have said, this is the one that leaves Tsunade speechless.

.

Ibiki knows that he will not have to lay a finger on the Uchiha to get what he wants, now that he is focused on what he is being asked. T&I, despite what some may say, is much more about breaking a person down from the inside out and not the other way around.

Torturing a person will get nothing but lies in order to make the pain go away; making a person torture themself until the only way out is truth or death is how to work a subject. No second guesses and the ones truly loyal to the enemy die. Win-win.

So Ibiki will not have to use anything but the words in his mouth in order to pry any information from this boy. Although, judging from the exhausted posture and voice, the Uchiha does not have any fight left in him. This is going to be boring, even if the kid is so high-profile.

.

"Naruto, you know he's never going to be allowed in the shinobi ranks again." Kakashi feels bad for his student, and pats him on the shoulder. They have a moment of silence, awkward but with an understanding that Kakashi is trying to be comforting. The shoulder shrugs, a response to his question rather than a request for him to remove his hand.

At least Naruto seems to be accepting this; seeing him yell and try to convince the Hokage otherwise would have been too painful. Naïvety may not be the death of the blond after all. And it is an unsaid fact that the Uchiha will not be executed. They need him for his DNA, which is best cultivated at the peak of his body's maturity, and the statement that it will send other nations and clans.

.

( _Konoha can take a rabid man and force it under control, take away its pride. We do not make martyrs of mad men. We cage them and let them live with themselves._ )

Because facing himself is the worst fate for somebody like Sasuke.


End file.
